46 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



ring ricli soil along the courses of streams, and ascending the mountain 

 canons to an altitude of nearly 3,000 ft. It is not abundant as a tree, 

 but occupies extensive tracts of sandy barrens in its shrubby form. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, close- 

 grained, odorous, durable, and of a rich pinkish-brown color, with 

 buff- white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.4689; Percentage of Ash, 

 0.45; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4668; Coefficient of 

 Elasticity, 49941 ; Modulus of Rupture, 539 ; Resistance to Longi- 

 tudinal Pressure, 359; Resistance to Indentation, 178; Weight of a 

 Cubic Foot in Pounds, 29.22. 



USES. A useful timber for posts, fencing, etc. , and the tree is 

 occasionally planted for ornament, for which latter use it has been 

 quite extensively introduced into European gardens. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not recorded of this species. 



GENUS JUNIPERUS, LINNAEUS. 



Leaves evergreens, opposite or in whorls of three, rigid and of two forms, one 

 awl-shaped and the other scale like, often both found on the same bush or tree. 

 Flowers dioecious, rarely monoecious, in very small catkins. Sterile catkins ovate, 

 with shield-shaped scales, each bearing at its base 3-7 anther-cells. Fertile catkins 

 ovoid or globose, with few (3-5) fleshy, concave, united scales, each bearing one 

 ovule, and these together becoming in Fruit a sort of berry, but in reality an 

 altered cone, scaly-bracted underneath, blackish or bluish in color, furnished 

 with a lighter-colored bloom, and containing from 1-3 bony, wingless seeds; coty- 

 ledons two. 



(Juniperus is the classical Latin name of the Juniper.) 



167. JUNIPERUS CALIFORNICA, CARR. 

 CALIFORNIA JUNIPER, SWEET-FRUITED JUNIPER. 



Ger., Californischer Wachholder; Fr., Genievre de Calif ornie; Sp., 

 Enebro de California. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaven thick, scale-like, small ( in. or less in length), 

 arranged in threes, closely appressed, acute or obtuse at apex, glandular- pitted 

 and somewhat keeled on the back, with thin minutely eroded edges. The leaves 

 on vigorous young shoots are linear-lanceolate i to ^ in. in length, not appressed, 

 rigid, sharp-pointed and whitish above. Flowers appear in very early spring, 

 terminal; the staminate aments scarcely in. in length, beneath each of the 

 rhomboidal scales of which are 3-4 anther- cells. The pistillate aments have 

 usually six more spreading ovate scales. Fruit drupe-like, globose-oblong, matur- 

 ing the second season, in. or less in length, reddish brown, with abundant glau- 

 cous bloom, thin, dry, sweetish flesh, and one or two large ovoid irregularly 

 lobed and angled thick- walled seeds with two-lobed hilum; cotyledons, 4-6. 



The California Juniper in localities attains the height of 40 ft. (1.20 

 m.), with conical top of stout branches and unsymmetrical trunk, 2 ft. 

 (0.60 m.) in diameter. More often it is shrubby, and along the 

 borders of desert regions is very low, dividing immediately above 



